It was cold in the Bronx, and it wasn’t fun Wednesday night. The Yankees scored twice in the first inning and then spent the rest of the night chasing a game they let get away, falling 3-2 to the Athletics in the second game of a three-game set.
Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge opened with sharp singles, Cody Bellinger drove in a run before an out had been recorded, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. and J.C. Escarra followed with back-to-back four-pitch walks. The second straight walk forced in Judge from third, and New York was up 2-0 before Amed Rosario struck out swinging to end the inning. It looked, for a moment, like the Yankees might run away with it. Instead, the night settled into a pattern that was hard to miss: one early burst, then almost nothing.
Will Warren could not protect the lead. With two outs in the fourth, he allowed three straight singles, then walked the bases loaded before spiking a pitch that Escarra could not corral, letting the tying run score. That left the game where the Athletics wanted it and where the Yankees did not. Warren’s night never fully recovered, and Tim Hill needed just one pitch to finish the fifth after Warren failed to get through the inning.
Across the other dugout, Luis Severino worked through the kind of night that asks for everything a pitcher has. He threw 32 pitches in the first inning and still finished five innings on exactly 100 pitches. The former Yankee was back in familiar territory, and the Yankees never found a second answer after that first-inning push. Pinstripe Alley’s description fit the night bluntly: it was cold, and the Yankees had a golden opportunity to blow the contest open in the first, but after the first three reached, barely anybody else did.
That was the game’s real turn. The Yankees went from a 2-0 lead and a packed first inning to a lineup that was largely stymied the rest of the way. Trent Grisham drew a two-out walk in the seventh against Hogan Harris, but Bellinger struck out behind him. By then, the margin for error was gone, and the late innings belonged to the Athletics’ bullpen and the pressure they put on every Yankee at-bat.
David Bednar was given the ninth with the game tied, and he immediately allowed a single and a double to the top of the Athletics lineup. That was enough to decide it. The Yankees had the chance to put the game away before the first inning was over. Instead, they spent the final eight innings trying to make up for what they left on the table.
